Gene B. Sperling (born December 24, 1958) is an American lawyer and political figure, currently serving as Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama.

Sperling was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he attended the alternative Community High School. He received a B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota, a J.D. from Yale Law School, and attended The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In the 1990s Gene Sperling worked for New York Governor Mario Cuomo.

During Bill Clinton's first term as President, from 1993–1996, Sperling served as deputy director of the National Economic Council while the Council was directed by Robert Rubin, who was promoted to Treasury Secretary. Sperling became National Economic Adviser to Clinton and director of the National Economic Council from 1996 to 2000.

As director of the NEC, Sperling, who had played a key role in the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act, was a key negotiator of the 1997 bipartisan Balanced Budget Act.. Sperling was also a principal negotiator with then-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers of the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed large portions of the depression-era Glass-Stegall Act allowing banks, securities firms and insurance companies to merge. President Barack Obama believes that the repeal of Glass–Steagall helped cause the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis.

Maria Bartiromo (born September 11, 1967) is an American television journalist, magazine columnist and author of three books. Bartiromo is a native of New York and attended New York University. She worked at CNN for five years before joining CNBC television. At CNBC, she has been the co-host of the Closing Bell program and the host and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Report and is credited for becoming the first reporter to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She has appeared on various television shows and been the recipient of various journalism awards including being inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame.

Bartiromo grew up in the Bay Ridge section of southern Brooklyn. As a teenager, she worked in the coat check room of her parents' Italian restaurant where her father was the chef.

Bartiromo attended Fontbonne Hall Academy, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Bay Ridge and graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in journalism and economics.

Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, serving since 1999. He is a member of the Republican Party, and has been ranked among the party's most influential voices on economic policy.

Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan graduated from Miami University in Ohio and later worked as a marketing consultant for Ryan Incorporated Central, run by a branch of his family. In the mid to late 1990s, he worked as an aide to United States Senator Bob Kasten, as legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and as a speechwriter for former U.S. Representative and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp of New York. In 1998, Ryan won election to the United States House of Representatives, succeeding the two-term incumbent, fellow Republican Mark Neumann.

Ryan currently chairs the House Budget Committee, where he has played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party's long-term budget proposal. He introduced a plan, The Path to Prosperity, in April 2011 as an alternative to the budget proposal of President Barack Obama, and helped introduce The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal in March 2012, in response to Obama's 2013 budget. Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns Program, an electoral recruitment and campaign effort by House Republicans. He endorsed Republican presidential candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney for the 2012 United States presidential election. Ryan has been considered as a possible running mate for Romney.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

David M. Axelrod (born February 22, 1955) is an American political consultant based in Chicago, Illinois. He was a top political advisor to President Bill Clinton as well as campaign advisor to President Barack Obama during Obama's successful run for Presidency. Following the 2008 election, Axelrod was appointed as Senior Advisor to Obama. Axelrod left the White House position in early 2011 to become the Communications Director for Obama's re-election campaign.

Axelrod was formerly a political writer for the Chicago Tribune. He is the founder of AKPD Message and Media, and operated ASK Public Strategies, now called ASGK Public Strategies.

Axelrod grew up in Stuyvesant Town on the East Side of Manhattan, in a Jewish-American household. He attended Public School 40 in Manhattan. Axelrod's father was a psychologist and avid baseball fan. His mother worked as a journalist at PM, a left-wing 1940s newspaper. Axelrod's parents separated when he was eight years old. Axelrod traces his political involvement back to his childhood. Describing the appeal of politics, he told the Los Angeles Times, "I got into politics because I believe in idealism. Just to be a part of this effort that seems to be rekindling the kind of idealism that I knew when I was a kid, it's a great thing to do. So I find myself getting very emotional about it." At thirteen years old, he was selling campaign buttons for Robert F. Kennedy. After graduating from New York's Stuyvesant High School in 1972, Axelrod attended the University of Chicago. He majored in political science. As an undergraduate, Axelrod wrote for the Hyde Park Herald, covering politics, and picked up an internship at the Chicago Tribune. He lost his father to suicide about the time of his graduation from college in 1977.